Former Billionaire Eike Batista Released From Prison in Brazil

(Bloomberg) -- Eike Batista, once Brazil’s richest man, was released from jail Saturday, as an appeals judge revoked a temporary arrest order that expired on Monday.

He had been detained last week as part of the ongoing corruption probe known as Carwash. His detention was ordered amid worries Batista might hinder the investigation into financial markets and privileged information.

The appeal justice cut short the arrest, ruling his detention can’t be used as a tool to constrain the defense. Batista spent the night at his home, according to the press office of Rio de Janeiro’s State penitentiary administration secretary.

Batista was already serving a 30-year sentence and under house arrest after being convicted last year of paying $16.6 million to get government contracts. His detention on Thursday included a freeze on 1.6 billion reais ($410 million) held by Batista and two of his sons, federal prosecutors from Rio said in a statement.

Brazil’s Carwash probe started in 2014 and has resulted in convictions of high-profile politicians and business leaders including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The investigation raised awareness of endemic corruption and contributed to the election of President Jair Bolsonaro, who campaigned on a law and order platform.

Batista’s commodities and logistics empire raised his personal fortune to more than $30 billion at the start of the decade, turning him into one of the world’s wealthiest people. Those riches evaporated after his group of startups went bust under a mountain of debt and insider-trading investigations.

He gained the rare distinction of “negative billionaire” in 2015 when his net worth sank to more than $1 billion in debt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mario Sergio Lima in Brasilia Newsroom at mlima11@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Ian Fisher, Kevin Miller

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